Blizzard planning cross-game achievments

Gamers will eventually be able to rack up achievements on their Blizzard …

When Blizzard introduces achievements in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, it will be just the first phase in the company's plan to create a cross-game achievement system. The system will work with upcoming Blizzard games—i.e. Diablo III and Starcraft II—and will give gamers a "Blizzard Level" based on their progress with the developer's titles.

“Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system," Jeff Kaplan, a designer on WoW, told MTV Multiplayer. "Your WoW score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a "score," we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like 'Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW.' That sort of thing."

The system will first be introduced in WoW:WOTLK as something character specific, but will be soon made account specific when the first content patch is released. And considering the long development time Blizzard titles are accustomed to, it could be quite a while before we see the system put in place across multiple games.

It's hard to think of another developer that could get away with creating its own exclusive achievement system besides Blizzard. This sounds like an excellent way to both bring in new gamers and keep old ones playing even longer.